Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/51

Of these lines, and of the whole first book, I am told that there was yet a former copy, more varied, and more deformed with interlineations.

The beginning of the second book varies very little from the printed page, and is therefore set down without any parallel; the few differences do not require to be elaborately displayed.

 Now pleasing sleep had seal'd each mortal eye;
Stretch'd in their tents the Grecian leaders lie;
Th' Immortals slumber'd on their thrones above,
All but the ever-watchful eye of Jove.
To honour Thetis' son he bends his care,
And plunge the Greeks in all the woes of war.
Then bids an empty phantom rise to sight,
And thus commands the vision of the night:
⁠directs
Fly hence, delusive dream, and, light as air,
To Agamemnon's royal tent repair;
Bid him in arms draw forth th' embattled train,
March all his legions to the dusty plain.
Now tell the King 'tis given him to destroy
Declare ev'n now
The lofty walls of wide-extended Troy;
⁠tow'rs
For now no more the Gods with Fate contend;
At Juno's suit the heavenly factions end.
Destruction hovers o'er yon devoted wall,
⁠hangs
And nodding Ilium waits th' impending fall.